ninetofiveninetofive Fun Ways to Keep Your Idea Generation Skills Fresh This Winter]]>Diana Burrell, 30 Oct 2017 12:59:00 +0000
Even I, a self-confessed idea junkie who loves nothing better than thinking up ideas to research and pitch to magazine editors, go through periods where all my ideas feel uninspired and blah. These periods usually occur in late fall and early winter, when the days are short and the nights are long, boring, and cold.
Same for you? Here are some clever tips to pull you out of the winter doldrums and get you back on the path to productivity.
1. Use what irritates you.
During the holidays I was getting annoyed by a certain type of pharmaceutical commercial and noticed I complained to anyone who listened about why companies should be investing in the exact opposite health problem. Then it hit me: that anger could be channeled into a new beat for my writing. Suddenly, I got excited thinking about all the possibilities for stories. Moreover, I felt a fresh burst of enthusiasm for researching and pitching ideas, enthusiasm I hadn't felt in a long time.
So what's ticking you off? Don't tell me—write about it!
2. Make your argumentative nature work for you.
I was always the kid who saw the exact opposite of what everyone else focused on and was ridiculed for my quirky, sometimes "negative" world view.
As a writer though, this mindset is a gold mine. Call it the contrarian point of view. When you get an idea, ask yourself, "What if the opposite of this were true?" Often this one question can point you to a compelling new idea, one that will stand out from the slew of "yay-isn't-yoga-great!' ideas editors are always seeing.
For example, we all know yoga is great for the body and soul. Hundreds of writers are out there pushing stories that promote how wonderful yoga is. But what if yoga weren't so great for the body and soul? Think about it ... you could spin that general contrarian idea into ideas/questions like:
When yoga instructors turn into gurus (An expose? A service piece?)When yoga takes over your life.What yoga-related injuries are common?
Embrace your crankypants!
3. Develop new routines.
Routines certainly make life easier, but they can make your life less colorful if you don't switch them up occasionally. If you feel stuck with your ideas, try doing the same old/same old a little differently.
Your switcheroo doesn't have to be anything huge. For example, I noticed last month that I wasn't getting much done during the day, which was bad news because I needed to produce material for a busy spring. I figured out that when I sat down at my computer in the a.m. dressed in my comfy pajamas and unbrushed hair for the day's work, the ideas didn't flow. But when I took the time to hop in the shower, put on a little makeup, and dress in "business casual," my productivity increased and the quality of my ideas improved.
At the end of the workday, I also force myself to spend five minutes tidying up my desk for the next day rather than slam the computer shut and bolt. I'm not naturally tidy, but I do perform better when my work environment is clear and leaves room for inspiration.
4. Talk to strangers.
As a writer I already spend way too much time inside my own head. To make matters worse, I'm a bona fide Class A-certified introvert who finds social situations mentally exhausting. Oddly enough, though, when I'm feeling a bit rusty in the idea department, getting out and talking to people—especially strangers—smooths out the rough edges in my brain.
I keep it simple: when I'm at the grocery store, I make an effort to engage the cashier or even another customer in conversation. I keep the interaction positive, which makes me feel good inside and has the effect of making me feel more upbeat and positive when I get back home to work. Sounds a bit silly? Trust me, it works.
5. Make a date with another writer.
Again, you're getting out of the house and out of your own head: double win!
But it's really a triple win when you can really talk to someone who understands this crazy profession of ours. Bonus points if you know the writer well and feel comfortable talking ideas. Even when Linda and I are individually feeling blah about our ideas, when we get together, we make magic. (Not that kind of magic, you perv!)
Can't meet in person? Schedule a phone call. Even if you walk away from the meeting or phone call with no ideas, you'll probably feel more inspired and receptive to possibilities afterwards.
Just don't let the meeting devolve into a bitch session about awful editors, how slowly magazines are paying, and why freelancing sucks. Bitterness is a poor motivator.
6. Take time off to fix what ails your creativity.
A couple months ago, my idea factory began running dry. I pulled out all the reliable tricks in my toolkit to get the equipment running again, but nothing worked: I was stuck.
I started to beat myself up, and when I looked around the house, I felt even more despair. Ever since I'd moved out of my office and into a corner of our livingroom so that my son could have a more private bedroom, our clutter problem had gotten worse. And as I mentioned above, I just don't do my best work when I'm surrounded by clutter.
I immediately shut off my computer and gave myself permission to get the house in order. I went on a massive decluttering spree, not only tidying and cleaning my environment, but getting rid of items around the house that were no longer serving our family's needs.
It only took two days to get the house back in order, and when I turned my computer back on, the ideas were back and flowing like crazy! For you, it might be getting your garden weeded or your taxes done and filed. At any rate, the time I took off was well worth it.
The key here is to be honest with yourself: will getting your house organized or doing your taxes help you move forward or are they procrastination tactics?
7. Move more/write less.
As writers we tend to spend most of our workday sitting on our bums, and sometimes the only parts of our bodies that get exercise are our eight digits with an occasional right- and left-leaning thumb lunge. And if you live in a cold climate, you're probably less motivated these days to go out for a walk, bike ride, or gym visit. I hear you! When the thermometer hovers around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, all I want to do is wrap up in my wool sweaters, cuddle with a hot water bottle, and dream about spring from the comfort of my cozy sofa.
This is the exact wrong thing to do, however, especially when my idea factory is suffering from non-scheduled down-time. I force myself to bundle up in my warmest winterwear and go for a walk outside for at least twenty minutes, ideally when the sun is still high in the sky. Not only do I get my heart pumping and give all my muscles a good stretch, daytime light boosts my mood—lack of sunlight in winter reduces serotonin levels, the feel-good neurotransmitter released by the brain—and I notice I feel much more positive about my work and ideas post-walk. My sluggish winter blues seem to diminish, my mind is clearer, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get a couple good ideas while I'm hiking the trails around our neighborhood.
So there you have it: Get off your butt, get cranky, get friendly, get moving—and get those ideas flowing again this winter.
(This article was previously appeared on the Renegade Writer blog, which is no longer publishing.)
What's a reported essay?Diana Burrell, 23 Oct 2017 15:18:17 +0000
I meet a lot of writers who want to write essays.
Scratch that. They want to be paid when they write essays. Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to write—and get paid for writing—essays. However, if you're an avid reader of popular newsstand magazines, you know that most of them aren't packed with essays. Many don't run essays at all; and the magazines that do run one essay each issue, usually on the back page and often from a writer who's well known to the magazine and/or the reading public.
I like to encourage students and not squash their writerly dreams, so I gently suggest that they turn some of their essay ideas into something I call a "reported essay." A reported essay reads like a magazine article—you've got your lede, your nut graf, original reporting and quotes from sources and experts—but the article includes those elements of essay writing that writers find appealing; the personal anecdotes, funny stories, teaching moments, and/or resolutions to situations that can help other readers.
Here are a couple articles I've written that I consider "reported essays":
Deciding to Have One Child
Cookery Books: Britain's Gift to America
I could have chosen essay form to detail my decision to limit our family size to one child or written a funny essay about how I travel to England with an empty suitcase to fill with cookbooks, but I've grown to love the marriage between personal experience and reportage.
Why should you consider reported essays?
Magazines buy more reported essays than essays.
Go to your local newsstand and flip through a couple consumer magazines. They're typically filled with stories written by journalists and freelancers who've injected a bit of themselves into their articles. These types of articles are staples for a lot of magazines, whereas these same magazines may buy one (or none!) straight essay for each issue.
There's just a bigger market for reported essays over essays with no reporting.
Competition to place essays is fierce.
It's simple: you've got a lot of writers wanting to sell essays and a limited number of outlets that will buy those essays. If you want to sell more work, you need to broaden your horizons.
You can sell a reported essay on proposal.
If you want to sell an essay, you must write the essay first then send it in to the magazine. It's one of the rare instances where a writer 'writes the article first" rather than querying for it. Why? You can't tell the editor, "I'll write a touching essay about what it meant to find my birth father after 30 years of searching." He needs to read your 500 words, to feel what you went through during your search, to see how you changed through the experience, and to find some emotional connection to your story that will not only resonate with him, but will elicit an emotional response with his readers. Only by reading the finished product can he learn if your story is, indeed, touching.
If you reslant your idea and position it as a reported essay, however, you can query for it. You might open your query with a brief overview of how you found your birth father, then explain to the editor that your proposed article will show how three other adults found their birth parents through social media sites as you did, as well as provide tips for other readers in their search for birth parents. That's just one tack you could take; there are dozens of other angles you could consider.
The material would be better served in an article.
I've read a lot of essays in my career, many of them beautiful, tear-provoking, or hilarious. However, the ones I see as a teacher usually don't deliver that emotional "bang" an essay demands. If you consistently struggle with this aspect of essay writing (I'm raising my hand here; essay writing demands digging deep into yourself, and frankly, I get squeamish around my own blood and guts), you may find a much better match in the form of a reported essay, where your ace reporting can bridge emotional gaps.
I'm not saying that you should give up essay writing, or even suggest that the reported essay is an "easy way out." If you've got a story that would make a wonderful essay, go for it. On the other hand, if you want to increase your income or end a losing streak on essay sales, consider adding the reported essay to your arsenal.
Are you an essay writer and would you consider this other form of writing? Do you enjoy writing reported essays? Add your comments below.
(This article previously appeared on the Renegade Writer blog, which is no longer publishing.)
Money-saving tips you'll never read about in magazines]]>Diana Burrell, 17 Oct 2017 23:26:28 +0000
(I wrote this blog post years ago for the now defunct Renegade Writer blog and am republishing it here for my Become an Idea Machine students and the general reading public. It's a bit outdated; Borders has been out of business for years, but a lot of the tips still work. Enjoy!)
I don't think I've ever read any money-saving tips in articles about how to save major bucks buying magazines. We talked about it briefly in The Renegade Writer, but since then I've picked up some new tips. Let's break them into three categories: cheap, cheaper, cheapest.
Send the magazine's SASC for a year-long subscription. You might as well get a whole year for what you'd pay for three newsstand issues.A bonus tip for the super thrifty: Check your subscription's start date. I've sent in subscription cards from a January issue, yet the publication will start my subscription effective with the December issue, occasionally November! Call the magazine and ask that they change your start date to the February issue, or even the March issue if you purchased February on the newsstand.
Use your frequent flier miles or rewards points to buy magazines. I've used American Express rewards points to buy dozens of magazines, and when some of my United Mileage Plus miles were about to expire, I traded them for subscriptions.Do a Google search on "cheap magazine subscriptions" -- you'll get thousands of hits. I've done this, ordered magazines, and knock wood, never have gotten ripped off.
Read magazines online. More and more magazines are putting their content on the web. If you're simply reading these publications to figure out what kind of stories they like, or you're already familiar with their demographics (I like to look at the actual magazine when I'm doing market research), web-based reading costs you nothing but bandwidth.Steal them. Well, let me clarify that. Steal them from doctor's offices, your mother's coffee table, your brother's lad mag stash ... that sort of stealing. Occasionally I'll see a magazine that I've never seen at the newsstand, so I turn on the charm and ask if I can borrow it. I've never been turned down.Read them at the library. This is what Linda does. My local library has subscriptions to at least 200 magazines. They don't even charge late fees if I'm late returning them!
Next Become an Idea Machine Class Starts Monday, October 16, 2017]]>Diana Burrell, 13 Sep 2017 00:01:13 +0000
My fall schedule is firmed up and I'm excited that I'll be teaching my popular Become an Idea Machine class again, starting Monday, October 16, 2017. I hope you'll join me for three weeks of super-intensive story idea generation!
Maybe this is true for you, too, but in the fall I get a huge burst of energy, hence why I've gone and developed a whole new website to help me promote my class. It's always been the time of year where I want to buckle down, focus, and make strides on plans and projects that are important to me. Perhaps it's years of schooling ingrained in our brains, yes? At any rate, my fall classes are always filled with students who are eager to develop their freelancing business, whether they're just starting out, or wanting to move into big-time magazines, or just a bit burned out writing the same-old/same-old and want to do something different. FYI, I've been in all three places, sometimes more than once, so I get what writers are facing at each stage and know a lot of tips and tricks I'm happy to share to get you to where you want to be.
If you have any questions about the October class or the class in general, please check out my FAQ here. If your question isn't answered there, do contact me and I'll get back to you within a day or so.
5 Tips to Finding Story Ideas That Sell]]>Diana Burrell, 11 Sep 2017 00:23:00 +0000
This blog post was previously published on the now defunct Renegade Writer blog. It's an oldie but goodie, still relevant today. I've made a couple minor edits, but otherwise here it is in all its previous glory. Enjoy!
Like many freelancers, you probably want to sell more stories this year, and one key element to meeting this goal is having stories to tell. And like many freelancers right about now, you're probably scratching your head wondering how the heck to find these stories. Maybe everything you're coming up with feels tired and old ... done to death. Boring and uninteresting. Or worst of all, you're coming up with nothing. Zip. Zilch. And if you keep going at this rate, that's exactly what you'll have in your checking account come March or April.
Last year I gave a talk to freelancers called "Five Tips to Finding Story Ideas That Sell" and it seemed to strike a chord with them. Here are the tips in a nutshell.
1. Memorize the phrase "That would make a great story." Whenever I'm talking to my friends, mother, kid's pediatrician, or a person buying bread ahead of me in line, chances are good I'm weighing the conversation in my mind and wondering if there's some kind of story I could sell to an editor. It's sick, I know! If my friend is poring her heart out to me about her cheating under-employed husband who just cleaned out her checking account, of course I'm there to comfort her and give her advice as a friend, but the writer in me is thinking, "Wow, I can't believe my smart, well-educated friend ended up with such a loser. This is the third time this week I've heard about smart women ending up with dud husbands. I wonder if a women's magazine would be interested in a piece about smart women marrying down. Is this a trend?" I'll be frank: much of the time, the ideas I come up with this way I don't use, because they'd violate a confidence or aren't that interesting to me as a writer. The real takeaway here is that I've trained myself to be present as a writer and not just a friend/mother/stranger in the supermarket during the day. It's a skill you can develop, too.
2. Focus on what what will be hot a year from now. Right now, a lot of freelancers are pitching stories about frugality, downsizing, and simple living. But I think forward-thinking writers have moved post-recession and are pitching stories that are a step ahead of the crowd. No, I'm not necessarily suggesting pieces on how to buy a share on a corporate jet or how to live large like Richard Branson. For example, we've been reading stories about "staycations" and cheap domestic travel, but I think international travel is coming back; if you write about travel, now might be the time to start looking for stories over the border. As a food writer, I would have been laughed at for pitching a story on caviar a few years ago, but right now, it might be a good topic. I could do a little digging and find out that maybe caviar consumption is up around the world. Are caviar producers feeling optimistic again? Is this some kind of economic indicator we should pay attention to? Right now there are "happiness" and "simplicity"" trends in literature; before this we were looking for our souls, gratitude, and "The Secret." Look into your crystal ball, or better yet, look around you: What are we humans looking for next? Super intelligence? Multi-lingualism? Peace, whether global or within?
3. Put the expected in the unexpected. I don't do celebrity profiles, but a few months ago a closed circulation mag asked me if I could come up with some stories about celebrities with a Boston connection. They'd already covered Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg, John Kraczinski ... as I told a writer friend, they'd taken all the hot Bostonians and left me to sift through their dregs. So thought, "What if I could interview any celebrity I wanted, no matter where he or she was from?" I came up with a list of ten celebs and then began to research any links they might have with Boston. Did they grow up here? Go to school here? Were they filming a movie in Beantown over the next year? Within an hour I hit paydirt with one of the celebs who was working on a non-movie-related project nearby that very few people knew about. It took me 15 minutes to write up my pitch, and within a week I had an assignment.
4. Read your local newspapers. If your local paper is The New York Times, the LA Times, or, like mine, the Boston Globe, of course you should read them, but the story ideas you can sell to magazines tend to come from small newspapers in off-the-beaten-track communities. Why? Because magazine editors aren't seeing them! This is where living far from the media world can pay off. Small local papers often have stories about people doing amazing things. One time my stepmother, who lives in a rural community, sent me a clipping from her local paper about a woman who was graduating from a community college and heading off to my alma mater. A single line in the story indicated the woman had done some prison time. I contacted the community college, they put me in touch with the woman, and I took her story to several women's magazines. (Unfortunately, it didn't sell because the source decided to pitch her story to a woman's magazine beginning with "O" and when that happened, the women's mags I was talking to backed out. Grrr.)
In another example, I started noticing our smaller local papers were reporting on drug arrests that were occurring in and around daycare centers. It made me wonder, "Geez, how do you know who's taking care of your kids?" The light went on over my head and I wrote up a pitch to Parenting magazine called "Who's Taking Care of Your Children?" The idea sold for $3000 and the story was later picked up by
5. Borrow ideas. No, I'm not advocating stealing or plagiarizing. If Saveur does a story on the pleasures of tri-tip roasts, you're going to look like a big dope if you pitch a similar piece to Food & Wine or The New York Times dining section. The editors at these places know what was in the most recent issue of Saveur and want to publish stories that haven't been covered by their competition. However, there's no law that says you can't use that well-written article on tri-tip roasts to spin some new ideas. You could develop an idea on the three most popular cuts of beef, pork, and lamb for roasting. You could suggest a story where you'll interview some of the nation's top butchers and ask them what their favorite, but little-known, cuts of meat are. Read articles and ask yourself, "What did the author leave out?" Often it's a germ of an idea you can develop into a full-fledged story. Like the structure or architecture of a story? Borrow it for your own idea. For example, I did a piece a few years ago for Parenting magazine that used the structure of a "field guide" to identify a child's cries. A year later, I read an article in a competing magazine and saw that another writer applied the field guide structure to a piece on feeding young children. I don't know if she got the idea from reading my piece, but if she did, kudos to her.